Heir to their Hatred
by Midnyght Saber
Summary: He thought that he could tell them, that they'd still love him as their son. However, Danny's parents take him captive, making him a test subject and slave to their every whim, offering nothing but undying hatred for the ghost that killed their son.


**Disclaimer: **_Danny Phantom_ and all related characters and information are the property of Butch Hartman and Viacom International, Inc. "The Unforgiven" is the property of Metallica and Elektra Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

* * *

I made a mistake by telling them.

I thought that they could accept me.

I thought that they'd still love me, that I was still their son despite my being half-ghost.

I was wrong.

Now, I'm kept in the basement, chained to the wall of the containment facility my parents built into the lab, its sole purpose to keep me prisoner. My only moments of sanity come with my sister's visits, Jazz having snuck down here while our parents are out of the hose. Through the inch of anti-ghost, soundproof glass, she supports me as much as she can, her pained eyes evidencing the disbelief in what Mom and Dad have done to me.

**New blood joins this earth**

**And quickly he's subdued**

**Through constant pain disgrace**

**The young boy learns their rules**

A victim to their weapons, a subject for their tests, I refuse to go human, more for myself than for them. I do not dare show them the pain-scarred face of their son. They'd only hurt me worse, blame me for what's become of their Danny, their damnable eyes unable to see that I _am_ their son.

I remain silent when I am in their presence, willingly subjugating myself to what they desire me to be the victim of. Too much pain has already coursed its way through my body, the tragedy I suffered for being myself. I rarely access my powers, which is probably part of the reason that they no longer believe that I am Danny Fenton as well. Since I no longer tire myself out by fighting, there's little for me to do but become the willing sacrifice for their science, their studies.

**With time, the child draws in**

**This whipping boy done wrong**

**Deprived of all his thoughts**

**The young man struggles on and on**

It's been two weeks since I let them know the truth, two weeks since they declared me the perfect prey to bleed dry for the sake of their animosity. I've done little but suffer at their hands, and all so that they could make the weapons they design better suited to destroy those that are like me – the ghosts that they hate so vehemently.

The ghosts that my parents label me as no better than have been increasing their attacks since my imprisonment. Skulker was incredibly angry at the fact that two pitiful humans could take his prized hunt from him. He, like the others before him, as well as those that followed, fell to the enhanced weapons I'd helped to put in my parents' hands.

Jazz managed to sneak Sam down into the basement yesterday, and I wanted so desperately to keep myself from looking at her, seeing the pain in her eyes when she saw the broken shell that remained, no longer the hero I had been. When I finally forced my eyes upward to meet hers, I saw in them something I never would have expected – longing. She mouthed something to me before Jazz rushed her out of the room and I could have sworn that it was 'I love you'. I'm probably deluding myself, but it's the little bit that I have to keep from going insane here.

**He's known**

**A vow unto his own**

**That never from this day**

**His will they'll take away**

I don't know what happened. One minute I was fine, my eyes trailing the movement of my parents and the next, I woke up and found myself strapped down to an examination table, a glowing blade in my mother's hand. She sliced into my shoulder, cutting the fabric of my suit away and using a pair of tweezers to guide something small and cold into the cut. The cut was healed quickly, cauterized shut in a flash of burning pain as my father pressed a hot piece of metal against the skin. There's another wave of black immediately after this, and by the time I awake, I'm chained to the wall in my prison cell once more.

Although made to contain ghosts, the bindings on my wrists don't prevent me from harnessing my ice powers, and as I tire of the sight of my parents when they don't need me, I coat the entire room in ice, watching at the window frosts over, hiding their hateful eyes from my empty ones. I don't care to see them any more than I have to, especially with me starting to see them as less my parents and more my captors with each passing day.

**What I've felt**

**What I've known**

**Never shine through**

**In what I've shown**

It's been four months since I was placed here, and Jazz just brought me some terrible news. According to her, the cops came to the house today, asking Mom and Dad where I was since it had been such a long time since I'd been seen in school. Mom broke down into tears, crying her eyes out, wailing over the loss of her baby boy to some maniac ghost that had gotten away from them during a ghost hunt. The cops bought it, sadly enough, and ordered our parents to go downtown and file my death certificate after giving their condolences to my grieving family.

I snap my head away from my sister, shooing her out of the room. I am ashamed of what my parents have made me into. Now that I'm legally dead to the world, I have become nothing more than a test subject and a slave to their every whim.

It's been a few days since Jazz brought me the news and, for some reason, Mom allows me out of the room on my own. I wonder what they're up to, if they're testing me, and when I try to walk up to her, I finally found out what was placed under my skin so many days ago. Tapping a button on her suit's sleeve, a searing electrical current forces its way through my body, immediately dropping me to my knees.

I have no choice but to obey them from here on out.

**Never be**

**Never see**

**Won't see what**

**Might have been**

I just 'celebrated' my first year or so in this cell, though I'm not sure how long I've actually been in here, mourning the passage of time within the confines of my cell. My mother recently extended my chains, allowing me a small bit of freedom within this cage, something that, despite the situation, I find myself thankful for.

Dad came down this morning and undid my bindings. He ordered me to take care of whatever I had to and to make sure that I'd said my goodbyes. After today, I'd never again see the outside world.

Once I'd gotten free of the house, I flew as fast as I could to Sam's house. I'd missed her seventeenth birthday by a few days, and I wanted to at least wish her a happy birthday despite the circumstances. She'd even go so far as to suggest running away, and I did my best to explain to her that the sensors and electrodes over my body would allow my parents to track me and keep me subdued until I could be restrained again.

And as it turned out, she _had_ actually said that she loved me that day she came to see me. A gentle kiss was all that I could give her then, telling her that she had to stop pining away for me, that she would have to find another who could give her what I was no longer free to.

She wouldn't listen.

She told me that no matter how long it took to get my parents to see the truth, she'd wait, even if that meant that her family line would end with her, childless and unmarried for the rest of her years. I tried in vain to convince her that she needed to move on, but she insisted that I was the only one she'd ever be able to be with.

I left, fighting the heartbreak I saw in her eyes, knowing that I'd looked the exact same way to her. Tucker was next, and I was thankful that his parents were out of the house when I got there. I'd already dealt with enough because of the way Sam had been.

I gave Tuck a quick farewell, wishing him well with his life, unable to bring myself to say much more than that.

It had taken me a mere three hours to get my last glimpses of the life I had once had, willingly allowing myself to be returned to my room in the basement, repairing the places within the cavern I'd made that had melted in my absence. Strangely enough, Mom left me unbound, even going so far as to remove the shackles that had been attached to the wall.

Apparently, they knew enough that I wouldn't oppose them any longer.

**What I've felt**

**What I've known**

**Never shine through**

**In what I've shown**

Sadly enough, I haven't eaten a single thing in the eighteen months or so that I've been trapped here, haven't felt the warmth of my human side in just as long.

Buried in ice and unseen through the window, Jazz has stopped trying to talk to me. I hated that I'd pushed her away so forcefully, but I couldn't bear seeing the pain and anguish in her eyes any longer.

Only called from the maze of ice I'd forged in this enormous hole in the wall every now and again, even the passage of time became something that I no longer noticed.

I think it was two days after what I figured had been eighteen months that I heard the door to my cell open, and I waited patiently for my mother's order to come out before I would get to my feet. The command never came and I turned my head, closing my eyes so as to let my ears take over. What I heard surprised me – it was the crunching of snow under heavy boots, nothing like my mother's footsteps, but too light to be my father. Opening my eyes, I was even more shocked to see Sam there in front of me, bundled up against the cold, an envelope in her hands. She flung herself into my arms as I stood, holding me so tightly that, had I been physical required to breathe, I would have choked to death.

Urging me to take the envelope, she let me know that Jazz had snuck her in after placing a call about a ghost sighting in order to get our parents out of the house. She motioned to the pack she'd been carrying on her back, and I cleared out a small patch of ice so that she could place the bag down on dry floor.

Planting a burning kiss on my lips, she turns to leave, telling me that I have to have my answer for the letter by the time Jazz picks it up tomorrow. Leaving the pack where she dropped it, she runs out of the room, wanting to be clear of the house by the time my folks get back, and as the door seals behind her, I run a pulse of energy over the cavern, burying her bootprints under a new layer of snow and ice.

**Never free**

**Never me**

**So I dub thee unforgiven**

Peeking into the bag, I'm utterly stunned by the amount of food that's been packed for me. A good majority of it is canned foods, dried fruits and bags of chips, but there are a few things that I make sure to encase in ice, including a few packs of hot dogs and a whole frozen chicken. A small note stuck to the bottom of the bag suggests that I should try cooking and cutting things with ectoplasm.

I'm almost afraid to go human, wondering what would happen should I suddenly revert to a human form that's been starved for so long. Rather than run the risk, I choose to remain in ghost form, popping open a can of soda, a bag of chips and a container of dehydrated apricot slices. Part of me is surprised that my ghost form can handle eating human foods, but when I feel my stomach start to clench and demand more food, I respond in kind. Chasing my initial meal down with another bag of chips and an entire package of trail mix, I hide the non-perishable contents of the sack in a cubby of ice to keep it hidden. Rolling up the pack, I notice a small bump in the front pocket and open it, finding a digital clock set with today's date and time.

Smiling weakly, I craft a small ledge in my frozen room, placing the clock on it gently. It's going to be a long, hard existence knowing what time it is and just how long I've been under my parents' thumbs, but I don't mind. It's a small thing that serves to keep me connected to the rest of the world.

**They dedicate their lives**

**To running all of his**

I managed to read the letter and write my answer, thankful that Sam had remembered to pack a pen in the envelope, before my mother summons me out of the room again. Once I am clear of the doorway, my hands are bound behind my back and I'm led to the far wall of the lab, my ankles chained to the floor. I hear the whine of guns, and I close my eyes, escaping the sight of my mother and father firing their weapons at me.

Two hours pass before I am able to carry my beaten form back into my domain, again feasting on the succulent, precious edibles that Sam had delivered. Looking at the clock, it suddenly dawns on me that today had been my eighteenth birthday, and the things Sam has brought me mean just that much more.

Being only half-ghost, I'm hoping that eating in this form can help repair the vast amounts of physical damage that have been done to my human form since I had been starved of nutrients for so long.

Crafting a mirror out of the ice, I'm afraid to see what my reflection shows me, but I'm shocked to see there's almost no change, even after all this time. It seems I haven't aged at all, something I wouldn't doubt considering the way I've kept myself locked in this form.

Getting back to the letter, I'm satisfied with my answer.

Sam's father, seeing the way that his daughter was acting and discussing it with her, had found out about my situation and offered whatever money and resources could be attained so that I could get away from my parents. He'd offered lawyers, private investigators and various other legal remedies just to get me out of the hell that my life has become. He wants to help me for nothing more than the sake of his only daughter, fearing that he might lose her to despair if I remain where I am.

Explaining to him that I have no idea of what would happen if my parents found out that I'd been in contact with him and Sam, I assure him that I'll find my own way out of this prison. I don't want anyone else hurt by what my parents are doing to me. They may have, at one time, been good people, but now, they let hatred and fear rule their judgment, and there is little to keep them from destroying me if they find out that I've violated their half-hearted trust.

Jazz comes for the letter the next day, hugging me briefly before she leaves, trying so hard to hide the hurt so evident in her eyes. Although I have so little to offer her, I give her a bag of apple chips, knowing how much she likes them. When she gives me this look, like she's feeling wrong that she's taking my food, I simply tell her that she's done so much for me during this time. I'm not even sure that I would have even survived without her support. It wasn't much at all, but she understood the depth of the gift I gave her.

**He tries to please them all**

**This bitter man he is**

Again, I'm called from the room. Looking at my clock before leaving, I realize that it will have been two years of incarceration as of next week. Offering my hands to the woman whom I want so desperately to call Mom once more, she binds them behind me, leading me, pistol pressed into my back, to the exam table. Releasing my arms, I slowly move my body into position, allowing the clamps to hold me fast.

Reopening the wound from so long ago, she removes the electrode embedded in my shoulder, replacing it with a smaller one. Dad watches on, monitoring my actions to ensure their safety while dealing with me.

Fully aware of what's going on, I make no movements, no sound, as the new cut is healed over in the same fashion as it had been before. Drawn so far into myself, I cannot feel the pain, the world around me seemingly fading out.

Both of them step a good distance away from me, and my eyes follow Mom's hand as she touches the trigger on her wrist again, and suddenly, my body is nothing but a writhing ball of pain. My body arcs against the restraints, the fire burning within me so intense that it's almost like living through the accident again. After what seems like forever, she finally releases the trigger, letting me fall back against the table, my body still twitching with the last remnants of the charge.

As my mother leads me back into my cell, a single thought runs through my mind.

Concealed within my maze of ice, I unzip and remove the upper half of my suit. Forming another blade from ectoplasm, I cut open the wound that my mother had recently cauterized, using my powers to slowly edge the electrode out from where it's embedded. Since I was blacked out for the first implant procedure, I'm guessing that there are smaller nodes throughout my body, serving as conduits for the main unit. Closing my eyes, I push away all external thoughts and stimuli, seeking out whatever may have been surgically implanted while I was asleep that day.

**Throughout his life, the same**

**He's battled constantly**

**This fight he cannot win**

Rolling up the pack Sam had given me, now carrying the various wrappers and remnants of my food, the chicken bones incased in ice to keep them from rotting, I sling the pack onto my shoulders, taking care to tuck the clock back in the pocket I had found it in. Bringing down a number of the interior walls of the cavern, I create a spiraling pathway from the door to the heart of my domain, waiting in the very center for the signal I need.

Drawing into myself once more, the only sense I need is my hearing, and with my ghost powers enhancing my natural ability, I hear all that I need to know – every move my parents make, every word they say, all the information I need to keep track of them.

Though I can't keep good track of the time, it feels like a few days that I've been here, huddled in the room, waiting for my mother to call me out.

They've been testing new guns. Even through the ice and the thick walls separating us, I can smell the acidic tang of ectoplasmic weapons fire.

**The tired man they see**

**No longer cares**

A tremor along the floor…my mother is coming for me. Slowly, eyes still closed, I move slowly towards the door, holding still at the last corner before the doorway. Hearing the steel door slide open, soon followed by the sound of my mother's boots crunching against the snowy cover I've laid over the room. Tracking her motions through the ice, I feel her walk a few steps further in, demanding that I come out. Turning invisible, I sink into the ice wall at my back, letting my mother move past me, walking into the trap that I've set for her. Calling my name once more, she starts running in, wondering what's keeping me.

Once she reaches the core of the spiral, she will find it empty, and without even looking, I can feel the tremor in the ice as her hand rises to her wrist, moving for the button that will activate the electrodes, snapping my body back into the visible plane and rendering me a twitching mass on the floor.

The pain comes, electricity firing, but it is she who is the victim.

I found all the receptors for the charge, taking them out, one by one, and freezing them into the walls of the center of the cell. Linking them to each other by infusing ice with the marrow from the chicken bones, the electrical charge carries around the room before focusing on her.

I'm glad that I buried myself in the wall. Once my mother starts screaming, my father runs in, seeking to discover what I had done to her.

**The old man then prepares**

**To die regretfully**

**That old man here is me**

Running out the still-open door, I fly, remaining unseen, up the stairs and through the front door, finally free of the tortured existence that I'd been forced to live. My first thought is that I should go to Sam, but after thinking about it, all I did was leave the bag she'd given me, along with a quick note telling her to throw out the trash of empty food containers, on the dresser across from her bed, thankful that she wasn't actually home at the time. Once I'm back in the air, I head for the place that I know I need to go.

Hovering over the Amity Park Police Department building, I drift down into the alleyway, hiding behind a dumpster as I call desperately for the human half of me. Finally reaching him, I stumble; falling to my knees, my sunken eyes find taut, pale skin covering what little is actually left of my body. Two years with almost no food and I was but a shell of a human, little more than a canvas of skin stretched tightly over a frame of delicate bone.

**What I've felt**

**What I've known**

**Never shine through**

**In what I've shown**

Pulling myself to my feet, my haggard appearance leads many people to keep as far from me as they can. Weak, barely able to keep my feet beneath me, I manage to climb the stairs to the front doors of the building, falling again as the door gives under the pressure of my body resting against it.

I'm horrendously weak in human form but refusing to call upon the reserves of ghostly energy I usually had to keep me going. I needed to show them just how pain-wracked and damaged I was. Pushing myself to my knees, there is suddenly a pair of strong arms lifting me from the cold floor. Rushed into another room, my eyes begin to lose their focus on the world, and I tap only the fringes of my powers to keep myself awake.

It hits me as I am being carried into another room that, save for the oranges, I haven't eaten in nearly three weeks. Starved for so long, there was little left for my body to run on.

**Never be**

**Never see**

**Won't see what**

**Might have been**

"Son, can you tell me your name?"

My voice fails at first, my parched throat unable to form the two simple words that would seal my parent's fate, knowing full well that Dad would have pulled Mom away from the charged cell before she could have been permanently injured. Miming the motions of writing, another officer comes over to me with a pad of paper and a pen, holding the paper steady for me so that I can write.

Shakily, my eyes traced my writing, garbled but still legible.

Once I let go of the pen, the officer looks at the paper, eyes widening. "You can't be. Your parents filed your death certificate almost two years ago."

I raised my hands, this time miming the action of readying a syringe before thrusting said syringe into my arm. Still unable to form words, I crossed my wrists, signaling imprisonment, half-closing my eyes in a sign of surrender.

"They've been studying you?" asks another officer, and I nod, waving my hand in a 'so-so' motion.

"They've been experimenting on you?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

**What I've felt**

**What I've known**

**Never shine through**

**In what I've shown**

Closing my eyes, I call upon the ghost within, releasing him, bringing to the surface the ghost that they all know.

A collective gasp of shock runs through the room, Danny Phantom now shown to them as a victim of cruel manipulation, a child enslaved by those that had given birth to him. My emerald eyes search those of the officers near me, and as comprehension begins to dawn on their faces, I willingly fall back into my human form, gladly letting my world roll over black.

**Never free**

**Never me**

**So I dub thee unforgiven**

The next time I wake up, I nearly start tearing the numerous tubes and needles out of my body, only kept from doing so when the officer that had asked me about my parents' testing pinned me to the bed. Finally looking around now that my eyes had focused, I noticed the immaculate white walls of the room around me, settling down into the pillows, the steady beeping of my monitor calming me. Straining myself again, I finally manage a few quiet words. "What happened?" I croak out, the sound of my near-muted voice strange to my own ears.

"After you passed out, we got you here as soon as we could. After examining you, the doctors told us that they've never seen a case of malnutrition or hypothermia as bad as yours."

"Hypothermia?"

"They still haven't been able to get your body temperature higher than 89.4 degrees."

"That's natural…because I'm half-ghost."

"Speaking of which, exactly how long were you in your parents' custody?"

"Two years." I motion to a cup of water sitting on the table near me, and the officer grabs the cup, guiding the straw to my parched lips. "I thought that if I told them…about being part-ghost…that they'd be able to help me…fix what I had become…but they chained me in the basement…starved me…kept me away from the world as a test subject."

"What kind of tests? Studies about your physiology?"

"Not at all," I answer, shaking my head. "I became a test subject…for their weapons…to make them better suited for…ghost hunting. They had a series…of electrodes in my body…that they'd activate…if I didn't do what they wanted me to."

"So, if you initially wanted them to help you get rid of this ghost half thing you're talking about," the officer asked, "is that still the case? I mean, we wouldn't want to risk you being near them again."

"No," I reply. "Not anymore. It was probably the only reason I survived all this time. I can figure out something to do with these powers that can be of use to the rest of the city. I have to. I'm too used to what I've become."

**Never free**

**Never me**

**So I dub thee unforgiven**

Two days after I'd woken up in the hospital, I got my first visitor, nearly fainting from the amount of pressure she applied to my chest. "Sam…can't…breathe."

She released me, unable to keep herself from kissing me, the desperation and joy and sorrow of two years finally let go. Her father followed soon after, his smiling face a strange sight to my eyes. Finally free of my parents, he was able to approach me, granting his blessing of my eventual marriage to his daughter.

Tucker came by a few hours later, trailed by a relieved Jazz. They were both visibly shocked by my thin form, something hidden from their eyes for so long. Jazz cried for a while, sorrow overloading her for a brother she'd nearly lost to their parent's hostility.

**You labeled me**

**I'll label you**

**So I dub thee unforgiven**

It took three months for me to recover enough to start rehabilitation, another two before I was able to walk without the aid of a cane, my legs having atrophied to the point of near uselessness. My saving grace had been the fact that I kept myself in ghost form for the duration of my entrapment, the death state it granted preserving my human body to some degree. My pallor disappeared, my skin once more its usual fair tan color; my eyes, however, remained tainted, transformed to a hazy, half-dead blue-white.

My iced gaze fell upon my parents half a year after my liberation, coldly following their every step as they were brought before the court on so many charges that I'd eventually lost count. Formally placed in the custody of my sister, I was present when they were sentenced to sixty-three years each for the crimes they'd committed against me. I waited, hoping against all reason that they'd make an apology to me before the sentence was passed down, but they looked at me, the hate evident in their eyes, and I knew that my hope had been in vain.

I had been their greatest test subject, their greatest discovery, the glorious proof of human-ghost interconnectivity, now become their ultimate failure and the reason for their complete demise.

**Never free**

**Never me**

**So I dub thee unforgiven**

"I hate you, ghost, you and everything you've done to this family. You're a slime that doesn't deserve to exist. You took my son away from me," Jack spat as he was carted away from the courtroom.

"You killed my baby boy, Phantom!" Maddie wheeled on Jazz. "And you! Why did you help him?! He took your brother from us, murdered your own sibling, and you accepted him like a fool! I thought that you were the smart one!"

"Shut up, Mom," Jazz snapped. "Danny wasn't dead. He wasn't murdered."

"I was in front of your eyes the whole time, Mom, but you were too blind to see it." My glacial eyes followed her, watching as she collapsed as she was led from the room, crying for her lost son, screaming for the destruction of the cursed ghost I was.

**You labeled me**

**I'll label you**

**So I dub thee unforgiven**

It's been four years since my parents were sentenced to prison for the torture that they'd put me through.

I've finished the two years of school I had missed, juggling my home-schooled classes with ghost hunting, Sam's parents having decided that they would pay for my schooling, providing me with both the education I'd been denied and the time I needed to keep the city safe. Returning to my glory as the hero of Amity Park, I was once again the ghostly protector of all that I held dear.

A year after my parents' trial, I was formally deputized by the mayor as the city's first ever spectral officer. Granted a badge and full honors by the police force, I was also the first officer ever put in charge of ectoplasmic entity control, provided with a squad of officers I trained as ghost hunters. From one who was once a feared ghost child, I became the greatest symbol of order, peace and protection the city had ever known, my vow to serve and protect the greatest honor in my life.

Sam and I were married last year, and I just recently found out that she's pregnant with our first child. I've already had to go about putting new flooring into the baby's room, taking into consideration the partial ghost genetics she'll probably be born with.

Well, I hope it's a girl.

**Never free**

**Never me**

**So I dub thee unforgiven**

Once, I attempted to visit my parents in prison, hoping that I would be able to talk to them, to just sit down and sort things out, but they turned down my offer, not even bothering to come see me. Upon getting their response, I stood and walked from the room, leaving the building, leaving the memories of my past and my pain in their own shame, looking only to the future – to my future, for myself and my family, for the city that I was born to protect.


End file.
